The present invention relates to a regenerable desiccant cartridge for an automotive muffler.
By way of background, regenerable desiccant devices for mufflers are known. One type over which the present cartridge is an improvement comprises a tubular wire mesh sleeve containing desiccant pellets. This sleeve is cut from elongated wire mesh tubing of indeterminate length and thus the ends of the sleeve contain the sharp jagged ends of the wire mesh. Each open end of the sleeve is closed by sandwiching it between two strips of metal and welding them to each other by a series of spot welds. However, the sharp ends of the wire of the sleeve extend outwardly beyond the metal strips. In addition, the metal strips each have four sharp corners which can punture the sleeves of other cartridges with which they are stored. Furthermore, the jagged ends can cause cartridges to catch on each other. Additionally, the sleeves are extremely flexible, and thus there is no fixed length of the cartridges which permits them to be fastened to mufflers by automated equipment. It is with overcoming the deficiencies of the foregoing type of desiccant cartridge that the present invention is concerned.